Snorri's eyes flickered open as he woke from a deep, dreamless sleep. For a slip-second open waking, he had the sudden fear he had overslept for his shift at the academy before the events of the last few days flickered back through his mind. Snorri pulled himself up from his bed in its horizontal alcove. He stared at the gnome in the mirror in front of him. It took him awhile to realise it was him. His face was caked in a mix of dried blood and brown-looking dirt. Snorri turned on the taps in the small wash basin and did his best to clean himself off. After washing, he turned his attention to trying to find some clean clothes. Luckily for him, he found a remaining clean set of grey robes. unlike his academy uniform, or for that matter, his stolen alchemist guild uniform, his grey robes were made of a thick, felt-like substance. designed to be hard-wearing grey robes for general day-to-day tasks and thus made from sturdier fabrics than the more professional uniforms.

After some difficulty threading the sword, chain, and cuff of the sword through the tunic and cloaks right arm, he fastened the buttons and pulled on the grey overcloak. He swung the sword in his hand, testing his movement in his new outfit. Other than some numbness and an odd coldness, he could feel no pain. "Arracop," he thought out of his mind. Soon he heard the clicking that accompanied the spider’s ethereal presence. “how many?” He knew that the count must have come down by at least a hundred, but he genuinely had no idea which of the goblins the spider would count. “Two hundred and sixty-four" came the spider’s hiss. Snorri blinked at that; his own count was apparently off by hundreds. “How?” he thought back. An angry clicking noise flooded through his mind in response, followed by Arcop’s voice. “Do you think the souls of spiders are lesser than those of goblins?” The spider had asked him with as much threat and malice as possible in the tone of his voice.

Snorri suddenly started as someone or something made an attempt to open the hastily barricaded door to his quarters. His small wooden table whined and bowed as the door began to open. Rage flooded through Snorri’s body as he clenched his sword in a strong two-handed grip. The table let out a splitting noise, and the door was forced open. Snorri let out a roar of rage as three goblin invaders stepped fourth into his tiny living chambers. Before the goblin knew what was happening, he swept his sword towards them in a devastated, strong blow, sending all his rage into the strike. The first two goblins screamed as Arracop’s blade Sliced through midsections, sending out sprays of green blood. The third goblin managed to send a blow towards the grey-cloaked gnome, but he was too surprised to aim accurately with the lard-clawly-forged sword. Snorri stabbed the goblin in his doorway. The creature squealed as he ran his blade through its chest. He kicked the goblin out of his quarters and out into the tunnel beyond. Snorri took a look over his shoulder, taking in one last glance at the chamber he had called home most of his life, then lept fourth into the tunnel beyond.

***********************

As Warchief Snarblac reached the bottom of the staircase with his unit, he was confronted with the sounds of roaring and cheering goblins. Assuming word must have spread of his incoming arrival, he was impressed that the warriors of his army cared enough to welcome him in such a way. It was therefore to his great dismay that he realised the cheering was not, in fact, for him. The warriors of His army were in fact cheering in a large crowd. In the centre of the crowd was maybe a circle of twenty feet of space. In the centre of the circle, one of Grut’s hulking brutes had removed its armour and was roaring as it wrestled some kind of large woolly animal. The goblin’s cheered on as the brute punched at the creature’s long snout.

The narrative has been illicitly obtained; should you discover it on Amazon, report the violation.

Snarblac cleared his throat loudly, and after nobody noticed, he stomped angrily into the large chamber. It was truly huge, possibly the biggest in the complex. After a few moments of searching, the warchief found Grut. His leader was standing at the rear of the crowd. As Snarblack tapped him on the arm, Grut turned his head mid-cheer. He suddenly cut off. "Oh, hey, boss. You want to bet? I think the sheep things got a good chance, to be honest," he asked. Snarblac shook his head and growled. He grabbed his victim by the arm and dragged him from the crowd. “Where’s Zarblac?” he asked as the two of them broke through the crowd.

“He’s over on the other side of the chamber with his boys, i think,” Grutt said, pointing somewhere vague in the direction of one of the vast chamber's far walls. Snarblack shook his head; his orders had clearly been to keep everybody together. “Take me to him,” Snarblac growled up at Grutt. “But boss, I gotta a lotta gold on this sheep,” Grut complained. Snarblac pushed his leutant towards where he had gestured. then signalled for his own unit to join him.

Grut led snarblac through the vast chamber. As they rounded a small mountain of gnomish corpses, the sound of multiple drums and the smell of smoke drifted towards them. The goblins of Zarblac Unit were odd, even for goblins. As they came into the veil, the warchief saw half a dozen of them sitting in a row, drumming on a variety of goblin drums with bones. His brother Shayman stood upon a wooden table, which itself had been pillaged and carved with a number of goblish glyths. The goblins of the shaymans unti danced jerkly around him, moving in tandem with the drummers beat. As the warchief broke through the boundary of the outermost circle, the rumming ceased.

Zarblac narrowed his eyes at the introducer, but he relaxed as he recognised his brother. He jumped down from the high table. “My warchief,” he said with a low bow. His brother and warchief responded by throwing an object towards him. Zarblack turned the object in his hands, and in the light of the chambers over the head crystals, he was able to recognise the severed head. “So two of our brothers have fallen this day,” he muttered, turning the head over in his hands. Snarblac cleared his throat. “Bring him back, brother,” the warchief ordered the shayman.

“like this? why? He would be useless.” The shayman said it definitively. The goblins of his unit let out deep chuckles at his words. The warchef scowled. “A demon killed him, apparently Zarblac,” he said to the shayman. “We need to know its powers so we can catch it,” the shayman hissed. “You would have me reached through the bounds of life and death to force a brother to live eternally inside his own skull just for information," the shayman asked, rambling the question slightly and wildly gesturing, causing the bones of his outfit to rattle. The warchief nodded. “I like your style,” the shayman said, smiling.

He placed the head in the centre of the table. “Right boys, you know the tune.” The drummers began to beat on the instruments much more, this time at a faster, more frenzied pace. The rest of the unit flew into a new dance, much more flailing and whirling as they sang around the table. Zarblac grabbed one of the goblins in the front rank. The goblin stumbled forward, and the shayman kicked out its legs, causing the goblin to land painfully on its knees. The shayman slipped a bone-handled dagger from somewhere on his person, and in a flash, he slit the goblin through. Zarblac let out a wailing scream as the neon green blood gushed onto the table. With the sound of his wailing, the blood began to pool and flow around the head. The drummers and dancers reached the pinnacle of their movement, starting their own wails. Green smoke began to gush from the goblin head on the table. Zarblac raised a close fist into the air.

Arracop, the ventor’s head, screamed into the vast open space of the chamber.